A Heart of Ice
by HVK
Summary: Ice King doesn't remember Betty. But Simon Petrikov does, and the day when he returns in full will be a dark and terrible one for all of Ooo, and all the world shall freeze in the name of his beloved. But now, there is only shards of madness, and bitter regrets from the core of his madness.


Wrote this on Tumblr after looking up Mr. Freeze pictures.

The references to 'Heart of Ice' from the Batman Animated Series are wholly deliberate.

Disclaimer: I don't own any copyrighted materials thus used.

* * *

There was a place far below all visible places in the Ice Kingdom's castle, buried deep in frost and ice harder than the bones of the earth.

There were dark places, here. The chill of the ice was set so firmly that even the heat of the sun could not melt it; the coldness that could freeze an entire world, and cold enough to stop a man's heart still in time. Forever.

Ice King came down there, his feet dragging on the craggy steps. There was a taste of something different here; in the upper levels, where he permitted his enemies to see his living spaces, it was just someplace to live.

Here, though. That was a different tale entirely.

Ice King did not consciously know of this place. He would never speak of it, and it would never rise in his waking mind to be aware of it. And yet there were still distinctions of separation between the maddened waste of a human that was called the Ice King, and the few splintered remants of the man that had been Simon Petrikov.

Here, in this place, there came the last shreds of Simon Petrikov when they arose and sank again. Here in the cold, where that which was lost was preserved forever, as still and beautiful as glacial frost beneath sunlight.

Here, where Finn and Jake and Princess Bubblegum and even Marceline would never see. In this place, that even the Ice King himself did not truly know of, there were secrets. And a madness that could freeze the world into a perfection of absolute stillness. No more change. No more growth. No more death. Just… sameness.

(_In his youth, Simon Petrikov had been tutored by an elderly man named Victor Fries, who did all his teaching from a refrigerated prison cell before his death. Simon had taken many of his lessons to heart, it seemed._)

Ice King, or perhaps a lowly shred of Simon Petrikov (and perhaps that was far worse than the Ice King, who was not at his core malevolent, but that could not be said for whatever had become of Simon's splintered psyche), held a hand to a titanic shard of perfectly carved ice crystal.

It lay in the center of a vast chamber, larger than all of the Candy Kingdom itself. Every inch of the place pointed slightly at it, great shards of jagged ice shaped such that light touched them and refracted in a shining brilliance, and it acclumated until the entire chamber seemed to blaze for all it's coldness. The walls, the floor, they glowed, and like a spotlight it was centered on this single crystal.

Taller than a building, wider than even the most ancient and massive dragon. Within it's depths, there was a single corpse. A skeleton, with not even a scrap of flesh left on it, eye sockets empty behind a pair of badly repaired glasses, tattered rags wrapped loosely around the corpse's framework. In some places, there was even a few traces of faint pink from an ancient creature that had been newly born and so very hungry and had not known what she had done (and Bubblegum would be sad to see this reminder of her wild youth again, and would not dare to tell Finn nor Jake of it's relevance).

There was no trace of the woman that had once lived in this shell. Yet, the ice had been molded, so that it created the shape of the woman around the skeleton. Flesh of ice, hair of crystal, eyes of snow and an eternal smile that seemed slightly sad, and yet totally at peace.

Ice King stared for a long moment. He no longer really knew the name 'Betty Petrikov' (for she would have been Petrikov, if fate had been kinder). But feelings never died, and the love they'd had remained, if twisted and distorted through the crown's madness.

He smacked his lips, and spoke. His heart seemed to beat, slowly and sluggishly, as if it no longer pumped blood, but something else. That his organs were no longer flesh and blood, but crystal and powder. That his bones had become ice, and if he was cut, he would bleed the winds of the frozen north. With his words, thick frosty plumes exhaled from his lips.

"I remember you, my dear. My love. My warmth. And I will always remember you like this." He laughed, long and mad and sorry. "You loved the snow, didn't you? Loved the cold. Loved it when it _freezed._ I'll make it good for you. I will let it all be cold for you."

He was silent, for a long time.

"Rest well," he said at last. "Surrounded by winter. Forever at peace, and forever happy. Rest well, beloved."

Ice King, or Simon, his head met the wall.

Crystals dripped from his eyes, welling up until his tear ducts seemed that they might burst from their solidness. (And the space around his eyes was so scarred.)

"I don't even know who you are," he said. "I don't even remember your name. But I love you. By the name of Ymir, _how I love you_."

Another long pause. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm sorry for, but I am. I will fix it. I will make the whole world cold for you, until everything is as beautiful and peaceful as you."

There were no more words to say, for though the sad remnants of Simon Petrikov often dreamed of a sweet place, where a warm hand waited for his, he did not think it was meant for what he had become.

Dreams were all Simon Petrikov had left.

Dreams, and madness, and the slippery slope that was getting worse.


End file.
